Presented by BootstrapLabs and PeopleConnect, AI Pitchforce is a can’t-miss opportunity for AI startup entrepreneurs to present to top angel investors and VCs. It will take place August 25th from 5:00-8:30 PM at Reed Smith, 101 2nd Street, San Francisco.

The opportunity to present in front a panel of distinguished investors

Event Format:

During the demo period in the first hour, guests and investors will be able to vote on their favorite five companies. These companies will be granted a 4 minute pitch to the panel, followed by a 4 minute Q&A session and 4 minutes of feedback from the panel. The bottom companies will then be allowed a one minute elevator pitch to the panel. From these companies, one will be chosen to have a full 4 minute pitch in front of the panel. The winner will then be selected by the panel and receive a meeting with BootstrapLabs, a meeting with Javelin Venture Partners and a $1,500 scholarship to the Keiretsu Forum Capital Access Series.

Here’s how to apply:

Rules: Any early stage company specializing in AI or Applied AI may apply

https://bootstraplabs.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2016/06/AI-is-eating-the-world-bots-bootstraplabs.png11582086luigicongedohttp://bootstraplabs.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2018/08/Bootstrap-website_white_logo.pngluigicongedo2016-06-16 17:51:062017-01-19 11:21:09AI IS EATING THE WORLD

The annual BootstrapLabs Applied Artificial Intelligence Conference will take place on Wednesday May 25th in San Francisco.

This year’s conference will focus on AI’s disruptive power and its impact on Society, the Enterprise, and People. The conference has a packed house of 400+ attendees and features 43 thought leaders in AI from companies like AirBnb, Accenture, Amazon, BMW, Facebook, IBM, NASA, Sentient, Singularity University, Stanford University, Uber and more.

The conference sessions include keynotes and panels on some of the most relevant topics in the AI space, including:

Why AI is changing everything?
Artificial Intelligence is not new, but the underlying technologies have reached an inflection point. AI is entering a commercialization phase and every product and industry sector is being reimagined using an AI­ first approach. BootstrapLabs believes this will drive an accelerated pace of innovation in most industry verticals across the globe.

“We have entered the age of Applied AI, and as an investor at the forefront of this industry, we wanted to bring together our friends from Facebook, Uber, Amazon, IBM, Airbnb, NASA, BMW, Department of Homeland Security, Singularity University, Stanford, and so many others to join us for a special conversation on the s tate of things in Applied AI and where we are headed,,” said Nicolai Wadstrom, CEO of BootstrapLabs.

About BootstrapLabs
BootstrapLabs is a Silicon Valley based Venture Builder Company with a global outlook on innovation, combining Human Capital with Venture Capital to invest in Applied Artificial Intelligence startups leveraging Big Data.
BootstrapLabs’ investment platform stands on three core pillars: Venture Capital, Human Capital, and a Community of founders, makers and thought leaders. Founded and operated by entrepreneurs, BootstrapLabs understands firsthand the needs and challenges of building a startup, and invests early in passionate founders who are building potentially disruptive technology companies with global potential.

BootstrapLabs’ current seed fund invests in innovative and smart AI­powered software platforms that create significant value for their users in large, global markets. Key sectors of interest include Internet of Things, FinTech, Future of Work, Logistics, Security, eHealth, and others.

Since its inception, BootstrapLabs has invested and worked with startups such as Prezi, Trusted Insight, AngelList, Aeye, and Zerply.

As part of Oracle OpenWorld 2015 this week, Oracle France organized a 5 day “inspiration” tour of San Francisco/Silicon Valley for about 30 French corporate executives. After visiting some of our friends at LinkedIn, Lending Club, and Uber, the group spent Tuesday morning with BootstrapLabs at our San Francisco offices.

Settled in with coffee and pastries, the group met with Ben Levy, BootstrapLabs co-founder, who spoke of his journey as an entrepreneur, our work at BootstrapLabs, and the economic impact of venture capital, and the unique role that Silicon Valley plays in terms of innovation, disruption and growth.

The executives from Alcatel-Lucent, Kering, Lafarge, Ubisoft, Société General, and other top French firms, had plenty of questions about how the changes we see here in Silicon Valley will affect the large corporations they run, with concerns about mobile apps, SaaS, financial systems and customer relations leading the way. Ben shared some facts and figures, as well as concrete examples of why collaborating, innovating and adapting to the changes that we see firsthand here in Silicon Valley are crucial to global companies.

As the event concluded with presentations from five startups that are working in the areas of transit, retail, collaboration, marketing, and sales, our visitors left to continue their tour and gather more inspiration.

Last week I had the good fortune to find myself interviewing Kevin Laws, the COO of AngelList just a few days after they had launched a series of announcements that sent tremors through the entire startup and venture investment ecosystems:

Launched CSC Upshot: a new $400M seed fund dedicated mostly to early stage startups and syndicated deals on AngelList; which comes in addition to the existing Maiden Lane’s $25M fund launched in April 2014

Opened-up its backend infrastructure to offer “SPV as a Service” for angels and VCs interested in capturing pro-rata and/or additional carry on their best deals, across stages

Pushed its iOS App for its “joblist” marketplace

First of all, let’s briefly cover what came out of my fireside chat:

AngelList is trying hard to stay in love with the problem they set out to solve when they first launched: “How do we help founders (globally) focus on what matters most, which is building their company and products, and spend less time fundraising?” You can sense that they have made this problem a core value at AngelList.

We argued that cross-border angel investing would not be possible without online platforms like AngelList, bringing both sides together (founders and angels), yet maybe more importantly without a trust & expertise based syndication model that aligns everyone’s interest, removes significant friction in the decision process (“emotional friction”) and ultimately building technology and processes to close the transactions (“physical friction”). Among the new stats shared by Kevin during our talk, he said that 10% of the capital invested online on AngelList was from outside Silicon Valley, while only 3% of completed fundraising online was for companies outside of the US. The new fund will definitely give a huge boost to the foreign capital percentage number above, unless they classify it as a US fund, event though it is backed 100% by Chinese capital.

Kevin placed the number of startups on AngelList at approximately 300,000 with 30,000 or 10% of them being in fundraising mode at any one time. In one sense, the odds of being “discovered” on AngelList are much better than they were in the Apple Store as of June 2015. There were over 1.5M apps, but the syndication of your round by a well known angel investor in Silicon Valley remains your best shot to stand out (kind of your equivalent to being featured by “Apple” in the store). The interesting bit for me was that this was still holding true for foreign companies trying to fundraise on AngelList. Kevin used the example of Descomplica, a Brazilian online education startup that raised $5M in February 2014 from Social+Capital, and used a syndicate led by my friend Lee Jacobs, a local angel investor with ties to Brazil, to ignite the fundraising on AngelList. Lee was also the very first to do a syndicate on AngelList so he gets pioneers’ points in my book :). Kevin also makes a very important point on the video below…you can invest anywhere but you might not be able to get your money back everywhere! Let us not forget that over 80% of technology M&A deals happen in Silicon Valley (buyer or seller is located there) and the last time I checked, corporate sales were responsible for 95% of the return of capital for VCs.

You can find a “meerkat” version of the interview here for now and I will upload a professional version from beGlobal as soon as it becomes available.

Now on with my two cents on their recent announcements:

CSC UPSHOT FUND

Some dubbed it the world’s largest seed fund and it sure is an impressive amount, but read the fine print. You realize that the investment thesis is broader…you are talking about investing in top startups (based on their metrics and syndicate leads) not just in Silicon Valley, but globally with the ability to do pro-rata and access later stage opportunities too (which are now facilitated even further due to their new SPV product). As I mentioned on stage, it takes a “Chinese billionaire” to have the humility to say “I do not have access to Silicon Valley deal flow, nor may I have the skills to vet it, but I sure can get some of the smartest people in the business to discover, vet, and syndicate some of their best deals for me, as well as secure access to follow-on funding via pro-rata rights and SPVs.” I am convinced that many institutions and family offices that invest in venture have been asking themselves why they did not think of it before, how maybe they just needed a lead to follow.

FREE ONLINE SPVs FOR ANGELS & VCs SYNDICATING LATER STAGE ROUNDS

This part did not grab the headlines, but this is probably the submerged part of the iceberg in my own opinion. By opening up its backend infrastructure and making these online SPVs free for Angels and VCs ($10K admin fee is spread among the LPs and AngelList does not charge any carry), AngelList is getting 3 very significant benefits:

they are getting all the LP contacts

they are accelerating the growth of their funds under management, and

last but not least, they are capturing performance and return data at the source

This is by far the most significant announcement AngelList made that day for the future of AngelList.

“JOBLIST” iOS APP

If fundraising is among the top pain point of founders, recruiting talent is probably way up there as well, so it is only natural that AngelList spends a significant amount of time and capital improving its job marketplace product. It will also over time become a very strong competitive advantage and barrier to entry as “startup” skills and know-how are in very high demand across the world. There is also a very natural and synergistic relationship between fundraising and hiring since most $ startups raise goes to hiring more talent!

At BootstrapLabs we ask all our portfolio companies to create and maintain an up to date AngelList profile as a way of communicating with their stakeholders, including future employees.

Thank you to Kevin and the team at beGlobal for providing me with the opportunity!

Ben is the co-founder of BootstrapLabs, a Venture Investment Company that invests capital, experience, and skills into disruptive software companies from around the world, and helps their founders relocate to Silicon Valley to build BIG. Born in France and living in Silicon Valley for the past 17 years, Ben is a repeat entrepreneur who launched, built, and exited two startups in the financial technology space, one to Mergent, and another one to SecondMarket, who was recently acquired by NASDAQ.

He has also helped founders raise over $300M of capital from Venture Capitalists and Private Equity Investors and closed $5B worth of technology M&A transactions as an investment banker earlier in his career. He is a frequent speaker on innovation, investing, technology, entrepreneurship and globalization.

Lund, Sweden | Wednesday 21 October 2015

In a room full of entrepreneurs, BootstrapLabs founder Nicolai Wadström shared his thoughts on Silicon Valley unicorns, and the speculation of tech bubbles and overvalued startups. He reminded his audience to focus on value, and the fundamentals of the companies being touted as Unicorns.

Prezi Presentation from the Event

PICTURES FROM THE EVENT

SPEAKER

Nicolai Wadstrom, a serial entrepreneur turned parallell entrepreneur as the founder of BootstrapLabs, a Global Venture Capital firm based in Silicon Valley. Nicolai advises all portfolio startups in their day to day operations, connecting founders with industry experts, advisors and investors to increase their likelihood of success, assisting with product design and development, positioning, go-to-market strategy and implementation, partnerships and fundraising.

Multiple time Startup CEO, CTO. Raised capital from Angels, Private Equity, Investment Banks and VC’s. Angel investor and adviser to Internet, Software, Mobile and Digital Media startups in Europe and Silicon Valley, including BootstrapLabs portfolio companies such as Prezi, Zerply, Audiodraft and Witsbits. Nicolai has been writing code since he was 10 years old, and still speaks Java fluently. He is very focused on product and technology development within the Big Data, Analytics, Internet, Mobile and Software/Cloud sectors. Nicolai is a frequent guest speaker, mentor and judge at Universities and Conferences in the US and Europe.

Experts from Facebook, Pinterest, Klout, Spotify, DocuSign, Foundersuite, Automattic (WordPress), MessageMe and more will talk about how to use strategic partnerships, APIs, and platforms to fuel growth. We will also cover best practice, tips for doing deals, and pitfalls to avoid.

Join us and corporate development principals and successful entrepreneurs for a special evening event on the topic of Startup Exits.

Hear stories from entrepreneurs who’ve sold their companies; how they did it, what they learned and what they would do differently next time.
Meet M&A leaders from some of the most active acquirers in the cloud, B2B, and enterprise space. Learn what they’re looking for, how their processes work, and how you can best position your startup for a healthy acquisition.

Enjoy complimentary appetizers and network with colleagues over an open bar.

It’s shaping up to be a fantastic event; we have speakers from A16Z, Marketo, Jive, Zendesk, Salesforce, Exact Target and DropBox confirmed. This is a great platform to socialize with a targeted, high-potential, and very-appreciative audience of about ~150 startup founders (including many from YC, TechStars, 500Startup, etc.).

BootstrapLabs is co-hosting this event with our partner, Venture Archetypes, and it’s on location at our San Francisco office right at Rocket Space (181 Fremont St).